Mastered for iTunes: Rolling out on a worldwide basis, Apple is now featuring songs and albums that have been specifically mastered for the iTunes Store to provide the best sound quality for the format.

The idea that people responsible for producing music think they need to pre-color masters so that high-bitrate lossy encodes sound more like CDs of the non-pre-colored masters is scary.

Having these people perform simple ABX tests would go a long way in bringing this latest round of insanity to an end.

That's what I thought... until a colleague of mine told me that he made some pro-audio guys ABX a file and its lossless encoding. As expected, they got like 5 out of 10 on average. My colleague: "Doesn't this show that the lossless encoding is indistinguishable from the original?" They: "Not really, because..."

Some of these people brought you award-winning audio productions!

Chris

P.S.: I'd buy music online if it were 44.1/16 lossless. Preferably HD-AAC

But here's some corporate shill: the colleague I was talking about was trying to promote the Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro-Codec plug-in, which includes an ABX mode. So ABXing is available directly in a DAW now. Question is: do producers care about such a feature?

But here's some corporate shill: the colleague I was talking about was trying to promote the Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro-Codec plug-in, which includes an ABX mode. So ABXing is available directly in a DAW now. Question is: do producers care about such a feature?

Chris

Somewhat unbelievable as you wouldn't believe how many times I seen company employees try to pimp thier products.but I suppose I can give you the benefit of the doubt :3

Not only Apple, every recent smartphone I know supports AAC, and those would (hopefully) play HD-AAC without requiring updates.

QUOTE (Woodinville @ Mar 7 2012, 22:39)

Y'all might also want to read the same titled thread (modulo a bit) in the mastering forum at Gearslutz.

Done. The insight of producers listening to a well-known codec developer and showing interest in ABX (and the aforementioned plug-in) made up for the torture of having to read UncleBubba repeat his "thoughts". But I'm curious, JJ, where in your opinion do "ridiculous bit-rates" start (let's split it, with vs. without SBR)?